Bill Studenmund wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
>
> > > Can you think of anywhere else we can store the data?
> >
> > 5) in another file in the lower-level filesystem, possibly indexed by
> > inode number. This is akin to the LFS "ifile", as well as how AFS
> > stores some of its metadata.
>
> Hmmm. I like this. I found out from Jason why this idea was nixed (people
> who aren't here anymore thought it would be too slow). But we'll look at
> it.
If the payload is small enough, one idea that comes to mind is storing
the payload in the extra inode, similar to how short symlink names are
stored in the inode. A new file type could be created, and the changes
to dump/restore would be minimal (except for inode number re-matching
mentioned in another message). Inode number re-matching could me
made easier by adding a new call (or mode to open()) which allocates
consecutive inodes for you, and sets the inode-link field in the first
inode. If the inodes are consecutive, you also don't have to worry
about an extra seek/read to get the payload.
Just random ideas...
Simon.